


with different eyes and no shame

by rarmaster



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Gen, Trans Male Character, also yuan is trans because i said so, and so are other characters becuase i said so, early dad reveal, me dragging in all of my headcanons about anna's family like No Big Deal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23078200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: Lloyd Irving is trans. It doesn't really change anything, except the timing of a few things.Or: Colette strong-arms Kratos into telling the truth, because she thinks Lloyd deserves to know, especially this, especially given the circumstances.
Relationships: Kratos Aurion & Lloyd Irving
Comments: 10
Kudos: 44





	with different eyes and no shame

**Author's Note:**

> i've been tossing around ideas for this for a while but was possessed by something today in order to actually see it done lmao.... i hope you enjoy it

When Kratos first sees his son, there is no double-take, no quietly repeated “ _Your name is **Lloyd**?_”, the words all tight and choked because it should be impossible. When Kratos sees the boy proudly tagging along with the Chosen, there is no recognition, no spark of quiet hope in his dead soul, nothing but carefully ignored annoyance because the boy pulls his own weight, but does he have to be so _obnoxious_ and _clueless_ about everything?

It isn’t until Colette drags him to Lloyd’s house to tell him goodbye before they leave, it isn’t until he sees the name on the gravestone out back that the pieces slot together, abruptly and all at once. Lloyd’s lack of focus in the temple was a perfect mirror of Anna’s easy distractibility, all of her eager and boundless energy that starts strong and burns out halfway through. Lloyd has his mother’s exsphere and his mother’s hair and Kratos thinks of Yuan, fingers clasping Kratos’ own as they lay side by side in the dark, the both of them still children, an eternity ago. He thinks of Yuan explaining inelegantly and nervously—all the things Yuan never is—about how he felt and what he’s not, and…

Kratos understands.

Kratos understands, and he _aches,_ he aches for a world gone differently, a world where he could have watched his son grow and help him discover himself. He aches because Yuan would have been delighted to know his nephew is the same as he is. He aches because he has been using the wrong name to mourn a child he thought certain was dead for the past fourteen years, and…

Anna’s probably rolling in her grave, listening to him overthink like this, and that thought just makes Kratos ache even more, because he misses her, misses her more than he knows how to deal with, the wound fresh and raw—it was right up the cliff, there, where his sword cut her open. It was right up the cliff, there, where…

“Kratos?” a voice asks, and Kratos’ eyes snap open.

It’s the Chosen. _Colette._ She tilts her head at him and in all honesty it does not help Kratos combat the ghosts that cling to his shoulders. Her eyes are the same vibrant blue as Mithos’, her hair the same golden shade, and… That gaze is the perfect picture of Yggdrasill-scrutiny, and under it Kratos cannot think for a second that Colette _hasn’t_ figured out nearly every inch of him. At the very least, she has noted the expression he is regarding Anna’s grave with, and put the rest of the pieces together _there._

He pretends she hasn’t.

He pretends she hasn’t, he doesn’t acknowledge it, he simply apologizes for being distracted and promises it won’t happen again. He pretends she hasn’t put it together, but he refrains from asking about Lloyd nonetheless—curious and starved for every inch of his son he never got to know, aching for every milestone he missed because he was foolish enough to think both of the most important people in his life died the same night.

Lloyd decides he’s going to travel with them, whether that’s what Colette wants or not.

Kratos is glad and mortified all at once.

( _He thinks Anna would be proud._ )

“I think you should tell Lloyd,” Colette says, quiet but stern.

They’re resting at Izoold’s inn for the night, and Kratos and Colette have this room to themselves, as they always do. The party is just large enough that it’s easier to split them between two rooms, and Lloyd refuses to be separated from Genis, and Raine had insisted fluidly that it would make sense for Kratos to share a room with the Chosen, anyway, so he could better guard her. Not that Kratos would have protested. Lloyd not wanting to share a room, alone, with the mercenary he barely knows makes perfect sense under any circumstances, but especially these.

Anyway.

Kratos attempts to feign ignorance, but Colette sees right through it, and in the same way Martel was, refuses to let him get away with it.

“That you’re his father,” Colette says. “He deserves to know.”

Kratos sighs.

“It’s… complicated,” he says, quiet, checking his sword over for the third time from where he sits on his bed just so he doesn’t have to look up at Colette. It’s complicated, because he knows how this journey ends, and he knows his task in it, he knows the betrayal that awaits at the end of the road and he is quite certain that such a betrayal would settle much worse if Lloyd knew it was his _father_ betraying him, and not some mercenary he’s barely known.

“It doesn’t seem that complicated to me,” Colette argues, all bright and innocent, but Kratos knows this act, knows it from Mithos, and it’s incredible to him that they can be so alike when Colette has never met either Yggdrasill sibling, but maybe that’s why she’s such a perfect match as Chosen, such a perfect match to Martel’s mana signature.

Kratos swallows. Colette is not stupid, and maybe if he gives the excuse he has, she will understand why he is not eager to reveal his true identity to Lloyd.

“You know… how this journey ends, Colette,” he says, soft. “You know how it _must_ end, and you know the role I must play in that. And you know that Lloyd won’t like it…”

“What does that have to do with telling him you’re his father, Kratos?” Colette interjects. He hazards a glance up at her. Her head is titled politely, hands clasped together in her lap, the moonlight sharpening all of her too-soft human features in a way that makes Kratos wonder if she’d be the spitting image of Mithos if he’d let his hair grow out that long, or not.

And maybe something about being chased by ghosts makes Kratos speak, or maybe it’s just the return of a habit he got into with Anna that he could never quite shake; the _need_ to put words to the anxieties bubbling in his chest so he can properly confront his desire to tell his son the truth versus all of his logical reasons not to.

“If Lloyd doesn’t forgive Kratos, the mercenary, for betraying him, that’s one thing,” Kratos begins. “But if…”

No, no. Colette is a sixteen-year-old girl that he is leading to her death. She is absolutely not who he should be sorting these feelings out with. It’s not like it will change anything…

“But if he doesn’t forgive Kratos, the father, that’s unbearable… is that what you’re saying?” Colette asks, and her voice has no right sounding so gentle when if she truly wanted to be gentle she’d simply let this drop.

Kratos doesn’t answer.

Colette doesn’t stop talking.

“What if he finds out, though, Kratos?” she asks, persistent. “Lloyd might not be paying enough attention to put two and two together, but Raine is going to notice one of these days, and I know Raine. She’ll tell.” There is no cruelty in Colette’s tone, but her words are cruel nonetheless, and Kratos thinks she knows this. “Do you really want Lloyd to think you didn’t recognize him? Or worse, that you didn’t _want_ him? That you’d prefer the dead daughter over—”

“Stop,” Kratos interjects, because that’s not fair, and that’s not true. “I don’t. I love Lloyd, as he is.”

“Then you should tell him that,” Colette says, simple. She is all smiles and polite tones, not even an edge of anger under her words, the exact picture of Mithos as she does it. “Lloyd deserves to know his father loves him. It’s not fair to hide that from him.”

She’s right.

She’s right, and Kratos is a coward, and.

He sighs, running his hand over his face, the other still gripping his sword in his lap so he does not drop it.

“Alright,” Kratos says, quiet. “Fine.” He hesitates, before he gets up, wondering if he shouldn’t let this wait until morning but knowing the longer he puts it off the more likely he is to simply never do it at all, instead he asks Colette her opinion: “Do you think it would be a problem if I told Lloyd now? I realize it’s something inopportune of a moment…”

“Well, we’re on our way to Thoda, and another seal, tomorrow,” Colette counters, easy. “So better now than after the seal tomorrow.”

Another good point. Kratos gets to his feet, fixes his sword to his belt, and takes a deep breath to steel himself.

Lloyd deserves to know.

“Lloyd’s asleep!!” Genis declares, when Kratos asks after him through the closed door. Kratos _might_ believe that, if he didn’t already know what the crack in Genis’ voice sounds like when he’s lying, if it wasn’t followed almost immediately with a hissed _Lloyd shut up_ and something unintelligible from Lloyd himself.

Well, since Lloyd apparently isn’t asleep, Kratos doesn’t feel too guilty about pressing.

“It is somewhat urgent,” he says, “and I’d rather not leave it until morning. Please?”

More hissing from behind the door, and they’re being loud enough that Kratos doesn’t even need enhanced hearing to make it out. ( _“Lloyd you don’t have to,” “well now I’m too curious!!!”_ ) and then:

“Hang on, I’m coming!” Lloyd calls.

Kratos has to wait a bit, though he barely notices. He’s used to waiting. It’s barely minutes before Lloyd opens the door and slips out, shutting it again behind him. Apparently Lloyd had actually been in the process of either getting ready for bed or trying to go to sleep, because he’s ditched his jacket and his swords, at the very least, and stands there in just his pants and his binder. Kratos raises his eyebrows slightly, both glad and surprised that Sylvrant still has that technology for how much it’s declined, and also somewhat concerned and hoping desperately that Lloyd took so long because he was putting it back on, because for all Lloyd lacks in book smarts, either he or someone else in this group has to know that binding is not a thing you definitely shouldn’t do while sleeping.

But if he opens the conversation asking about that, Lloyd’s probably just going to get frustrated with him, so it can wait. Besides:

“You wanna, like, talk here?” Lloyd asks. “I mean I guess if it’s something you don’t mind Genis hearing we could go back in there, I’d just rather not go all the way outside, I’m not even wearing shoes,” and he says it all in a rush, which makes Kratos fond.

He figures Genis and Raine are going to have to find out, anyway, and Colette already knows, so it doesn’t really matter to Kratos. “It doesn’t matter to me,” he tells Lloyd. “Wherever you’re comfortable.”

“I dunno, here’s fine,” Lloyd answers. Like Triet, the only thing separating the upper floor of the inn from the space below is a railing, which Lloyd leans back against now, crossing his arms over his chest. “What’s up?”

Well, Kratos hadn’t planned this far ahead, and he regrets that, now.

“I…” he begins, slowly, trying to hold Lloyd’s gaze even though he desperately wants to look at anything else. “This might be a little awkward, so apologies in advance,” he says.

“Boy, that’s reassuring,” Lloyd answers, deadpan, and if Kratos weren’t suddenly so nervous he’d laugh for how fond he was.

“Sorry,” Kratos apologizes, again. “And I am sorry that I didn’t bring it up, sooner. But I wasn’t sure how to do it,” ( _true, even if not the whole truth_ ,) “And even now I am not sure if there even is a best way _to_ do it…”

“Yeah?” Lloyd says, eyebrows raised, clearly skeptical or wondering why the hell Kratos is wasting his time with this nonsense, and Kratos breathes against the worries. There isn’t a best way to do this, is there? He just has to say it.

“I think I’m your father,” Kratos says.

( _“Think”, Kratos says, as if there is more than a one-percent chance he isn’t. “Think”, Kratos says, as if he isn’t completely and utterly certain that the young man standing before him is his and Anna’s child._ )

“Oh,” Lloyd says, soft and short. His eyebrows raise even higher, and so does his voice. “Yeah?”

Kratos nods, embarrassed. He clenches his hands into his fists, digs his fingernails into the cloth of his gloves. “Yes, I think,” he says again. “After all, your mother’s name was Anna, and that exsphere…” His eyes dart towards it, shining on the back of Lloyd’s hand. He swallows. “…was hers.”

“You recognize it?” Lloyd asks, lifting it up to the lamplight.

It would be difficult to not recognize the stone that killed his wife.

“Yes,” Kratos says.

Lloyd looks at the exsphere for a moment longer, then turns to Kratos, still looking skeptical. “Like, I guess I don’t have a reason _not_ to believe you,” he says. “But…”

Kratos sighs. “No, I understand,” he insists. He does. He has not offered Lloyd a lot of proof, all things considered, so: “Here…” He reaches up and undoes the clasp of the locket he wears— _Anna’s_ locket—and hands it over to Lloyd. “This was your mother’s, too.”

The locket, the picture inside it, it’s the most proof he has, other than a long list of facts and evidence that would simply bore Lloyd. Lloyd takes the locket and opens it, letting out a soft note of surprise as he considers the picture. Kratos wonders if it is, in fact, proof enough, given Lloyd in that picture is barely a year old, but…

“If you pull the picture out, our names are on the back,” Kratos adds, his heart in his throat, knowing what Lloyd will find when he looks.

Lloyd raises his eyebrows at Kratos, then fumbles until he slides the picture—gentle—out of the locket, and turns it over. “Oh,” Lloyd says, like he’s just been punched in the gut. “ _Oh,_ holy shit, you…” He says, and then seems to lose the words about there, unable to articulate whatever it is he’s feeling about the sight of his own deadname thoroughly crossed out, _Lloyd_ written in careful letters in its place underneath. Lloyd finally laughs, watery, and reaches up to scrub at his eyes with the back of his right hand. “Guess that uh, that means you’re, uh, cool with… me being…”

He can’t quite get the words to finish. Kratos doesn’t need him to.

“Lloyd, your comfort and happiness are more important than anything else,” he assures his son.

Lloyd laughs again, still watery, but his grinning. “Would, uh,” he asks, fumbling to get the picture back in the locket. He manages before Kratos can offer to do it himself. “Do you think Mom—she wouldn’t have cared, would she?”

“Of course not,” Kratos says, easily, immediately.

“Yeah, but,” Lloyd protests. “Do you _know_ that? Like—she didn’t live to see me. Didn’t. It’s not like. _You_ get to actually know about it, and she doesn’t, and… I mean you can guess, and you’d probably know better than anyone else, but…”

Gently, Kratos squeezes his son’s shoulder. He wonders how long Lloyd has grappled with these worries, wonders how long Lloyd has asked himself whether or not his parents would still love him if they were alive to know, and it breaks his heart. ( _Maybe Colette knew this. Lloyd must be freer with his anxieties around her than he is around Kratos. Maybe that’s why she insisted._ )

“Anna would love you, no matter what,” Kratos insists, as softly as he can. And, because there’s no reason, really, to _not_ tell Lloyd, he adds: “Her sister, Luca, was like you are.”

“ _Oh,_ ” Lloyd says. “Holy shit, I have an aunt??”

It’s a knife in Kratos’ chest, twisting, lovingly and painfully. “Had,” he corrects, mouth dry. “Anna’s family… they all…” He only ever met half of them, Luca and one of Anna’s fathers dying years before Kratos found her halfway through an escape attempt from Kvar’s ranch. “The Desians killed them, as well,” Kratos whispers.

Lloyd squeezes his eyes shut, breathes against what must be grief. “You… must’ve thought I was dead too, huh, if the Desians killed everyone else?” he asks.

And that’s not… _exactly_ how it went, or exactly the reasons why, but it’s close enough to the truth, and easier to let Lloyd assume, here. Lloyd does not need to know who actually killed his mother. Let him think what he wants.

“Yes,” Kratos answers. “That’s why… I never looked for you. I’m sorry.”

Lloyd shrugs. “That’s okay,” he says, and he at least doesn’t _sound_ upset. Whatever tears linger in his voice are left over from everything else, Kratos thinks. “I mean—don’t get me wrong, I kind of wish I’d gotten to grow up with you, I guess, but. I mean. I dunno if I’d trade Dad— _Dirk_ raising me, you know?” Lloyd fidgets where he stands, but he’s still smiling, like the memories are treasured. “Dirk’s, um… I mean, he’s trans, like me, so, he really helped me figure a lot of things out. I’m real grateful for that.”

“Me too,” Kratos says. If nothing else, it means Lloyd _isn’t_ stupid enough to try sleeping in his binder, which is a good thing.

Lloyd blushes, elbows him. Somehow, he is so much like Anna, and it _hurts._

“Should I not be grateful that someone was there for my son when I wasn’t?” Kratos asks, and Lloyd blushes even harder.

“What the hell, you really are my dad!” he whines, like he can’t decide if he likes that fact now that he’s coming to terms with it. He shoves the locket back in Kratos’ direction, and Kratos breathes a sigh of relief at that, grateful to return its weight to its place around his neck. Lloyd grumbles something else—nothing really coherent, sentences all left unfinished—before he finally turns to Kratos, eyes wide and cautiously eager. “Hey, that means—you can tell me about Mom, right?” he asks. “I wanna know… _everything_ about her. And her family. And about you.”

Kratos sighs deep, and heavy. That’s a lot of grief he’ll have to sift through, but… it’s the least he owes Lloyd, so: “You’ll have to go to bed tonight eventually, but yes, alright,” he allows. But first. But first, he reaches over, and pulls Lloyd into a hug, tucking his chin into Lloyd’s hair. “I love you, Lloyd.”

“Oh,” Lloyd says. He relaxes into the hug before Kratos can regret it, though, slinging his arms around Kratos’ back and burying his face in Kratos’ chest. “Thanks, Dad.”


End file.
